scours frustration

[goatsintheopen]

The other thing that just re-occurred to me is acidosis.. It can cause a watery, brown, foul smelling scour like that.. Usually the result of overfeeding grain.. For instance, sometimes if I'm pushing grain onto a mama or something like that, I'll sometimes push until she starts to 'loosen up', which sometimes goes a little too far and results in basically what the OP described.. I'm not sure why I didn't think to ask about feeding changes or feed locker break-ins with my initial reply, but...

Anyway, if you suspect it could have been related to overfeeding/overeating, baking soda can be hugely helpful in those cases.

I am SOOO careful about feeding grain. I am very paranoid of them over eating it and bloating..so they don't get free choice. I give my goats a measured amount of grain each morning for their weight, and that's all they get for the day. They eat mainly alfalfa and orchard grass hay. Since the fecal didn't reveal anything, I'm guessing she had to have eaten something that didn't agree with her.. I've heard about using baking soda.. thanks for that.

 

[zzGypsy]

haven't used it with goats, but we have used kaopectate (on a vet's advice) for scours in sheep when we haven't been able to identify the cause. it helps stabilize the gut and reduce dehydration. dose is the same as for people, by weight.
pepto bismol is also useful in sheep with obvious disgestive upset, with the added advantage that sheep think it's especially tasty. haven't used pepto in goats.

we do keep baking soda out for the goats all the time, they eat it if they need it. and we keep a couple bottles of bloat release in our medicine cabinet as well.

 

[cmjust0]

haven't used it with goats, but we have used kaopectate (on a vet's advice) for scours in sheep when we haven't been able to identify the cause. it helps stabilize the gut and reduce dehydration. dose is the same as for people, by weight.
pepto bismol is also useful in sheep with obvious disgestive upset, with the added advantage that sheep think it's especially tasty. haven't used pepto in goats.

Kaopectate and Pepto are actually the same thing these days.. Kaopectate used to be kaolin/pectin, but the formula was changed about 10 years ago and now it's bismuth subsalicylate, just like Pepto Bismol. You can usually still get real kaolin/pectin at livestock supply places, though.

What bismuth does is coat the GI, which is handy in cases where something's attacking the gut lining.. Could be a case of bacterial enteritis, could be acidosis, coccidiosis -- anytime you'd figure that putting some type of 'shield' up around the guts would be a handy thing to do..

 

[zzGypsy]

haven't used it with goats, but we have used kaopectate (on a vet's advice) for scours in sheep when we haven't been able to identify the cause. it helps stabilize the gut and reduce dehydration. dose is the same as for people, by weight.
pepto bismol is also useful in sheep with obvious disgestive upset, with the added advantage that sheep think it's especially tasty. haven't used pepto in goats.

Kaopectate and Pepto are actually the same thing these days.. Kaopectate used to be kaolin/pectin, but the formula was changed about 10 years ago and now it's bismuth subsalicylate, just like Pepto Bismol. You can usually still get real kaolin/pectin at livestock supply places, though.

What bismuth does is coat the GI, which is handy in cases where something's attacking the gut lining.. Could be a case of bacterial enteritis, could be acidosis, coccidiosis -- anytime you'd figure that putting some type of 'shield' up around the guts would be a handy thing to do..

well now that's interesting, I didn't realize it had been changed. I'll have to look for the kaolin/pectin, I've never seen it for sale.

guess I'll just use pepto in the future - my sheep will lick that up out of a dish, so it's easy to dose

 

[ksalvagno]

What kind of fecal was done? Was it the quick fecal float at the vet? I send my fecals off to the state lab. They do a longer procedure that catches more types. Emac (type of coccidia) is one of them that needs the longer test done. I don't do fecals myself so I have no idea what is done but definitely more types of parasites show up when the test is run by the state lab.

There is also stuff like crypto and giardia along with salmonella, etc. Those would all be separate tests.

 

[goatsintheopen]

What kind of fecal was done? Was it the quick fecal float at the vet? I send my fecals off to the state lab. They do a longer procedure that catches more types. Emac (type of coccidia) is one of them that needs the longer test done. I don't do fecals myself so I have no idea what is done but definitely more types of parasites show up when the test is run by the state lab.

There is also stuff like crypto and giardia along with salmonella, etc. Those would all be separate tests.

Hmmm.. I didnt' even think to ask :/
I know they looked for coccida.. I just assumed that they would look for anything, since we were trying to figure out what was going on. My vet sees quite a few goats so I just trusted they'd know what to do. May's stools are normal again thankfully..so yeah, I don't know. this is probably a stupid question, but where would they pick up salmonella? I know we can get it from eating bad chicken... but goats, would they contract it from chicken manure some how?

 

[ksalvagno]

I would find out what they do for a fecal test. I know my local vets just do the quick fecal float. While they can find the garden variety coccidia, it doesn't find the ones like Emac.